“Gaymer” trademark has to go, say reddit's gay gamers

Wait... is involvement in discussions and stuff expected, or even a requirement, or could I just hang out and play some games with the people in there in peace? Given that I'm not gay it's likely I won't be very interested in conversations about common interest from the gay part of the term, and the group is clearly created for people who can identify with that aspect. However, given that I'm a gamer, I would very much be interested in playing every now and then with members from what seems to me has to be a pretty sizable group that probably won't shout sexually derogatory terms at me. Any member here who can comment on that? Is it acceptable to not actually share the identity of the community? Well, at least half the identity. I'm not expecting *all* of them to be the most civilized people ever, but at least I'll have some variety in the smack talk .

Once I was playing L4D co-op and someone asked where I am from. When I said "I am from Serbia" another guy (obviously Albanian) team-killed me on the spot saying "I am from Kosovo, die motherfucker".Should I now create a group of Serbian gamers and stop playing with the rest of the world because of that?

I don't know, but I do know that this isn't what the Gaymers subreddit is for. If you had been paying attention you might have noticed when I pointed this out several times throughout the thread, quoted and linked to their description of the subreddit, and pointed to the article in which one of the redditors described their community as being the opposite of what you're hypothetically doing. Were you paying attention? Because if you did see all that, I don't know how to explain away your persisting mischaracterization except in terms of your intelligence or psychological make-up.

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If anything, they should pay less attention to in-game name calling, because it is not targeted at their sexual orientation regardless of the words being used. Whether someone says "fag", "bitch", "queer", "asshole", "monkey" they always mean the same thing -- you suck at playing.

Like black people! They should just let it slide when some white guy throws around the word "nigger" as an insult to mean the person they're playing against is bad. And Jews! They should just chill out when people use the phrase "You're such a Jew!" to mean someone is a miserly bastard or manipulator. It's not like those name-callers are actually saying anything people they're directly insulting, just using some other group's identity as a reference for inferiority, lousy character traits, mental deficiencies, etc. Anybody who's a member of those minorities shouldn't care about their unchangeable physical traits being used as an insult!

A.Felix wrote:

Wait... is involvement in discussions and stuff expected, or even a requirement, or could I just hang out and play some games with the people in there in peace? Given that I'm not gay it's likely I won't be very interested in conversations about common interest from the gay part of the term, and the group is clearly created for people who can identify with that aspect. However, given that I'm a gamer, I would very much be interested in playing every now and then with members from what seems to me has to be a pretty sizable group that probably won't shout sexually derogatory terms at me. Any member here who can comment on that? Is it acceptable to not actually share the identity of the community? Well, at least half the identity. I'm not expecting *all* of them to be the most civilized people ever, but at least I'll have some variety in the smack talk .

According to their description, the subreddit is mostly for discussion about gay issues, homosexual takes on gaming, how sexy X character is, et cetera and suchlike. But I bet you could pop into the chats and find someone willing to game with you if talking about homosexual themes in gaming isn't your thing. Which is why it puzzles me that after I quoted their discussion and linked to the subreddit earlier in the thread, how they described themselves as inclusive and not exclusively for Teh Gayes but for anybody willing to join, people still talk as though this is some kind of segregated community or something.

Gaymer isn't a commonly used word. Gamer is. But you gotta know Gaymer will become a derogatory term just like Fag has become in modern times. How fag went from being another word for a cigarette to a term meaning homosexual is beyond me.

If anyone here knows how that happened PLEASE share.

No etymology is completely accepted, but the general arc seems to be from faggot meaning a pile of wood -> derogatory term for women (who would gather such a pile) -> derogatory term for homosexuals.

I would have assumed it arose as a direct metaphor for fellatio; i.e. "Smoking a fag."

The gaymer community is indeed a vibrant and growing one. This August, the GaymerX convention (formerly called GaymerCon) will take place in San Francisco, with the intent of pushing back against some of the homophobia in gaming culture.

Doesn't naming this event (with either title) cross the same line the Reddit community is fighting ?

It cannot be the only convention without legal status (Website is copyrighted) on the use of the name. CES and MacWorld (Mac Expo / iWorld) and plenty of others are registered.

So throwing their own arguement back at them - they should have their own registrations invalidated.

So wait. There is a miserable failure on the highly paid piece of the government that's paid to actually research if a Trademark application is valid, and it has to be fought over in court by common people?

I love it how LGBTQ people participating in those discussions are so tolerant (the very thing they demand from others), that they instantly downvote any opinion that doesn't match their own (like they did with my post for example) and don't even attempt to debate and provide counter-arguments.

Statistically speaking, it seems unlikely that the majority of your downvotes come from LGBT people. They probably just come from people who disagree with you, but don't feel like posting. For every poster there are 10 lurkers, at least.

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So what I take from your post is that LGBTQ community won't settle down and cosider themselves equal until they change the whole world to suit them? Until the proportion of gay .vs. straight is 1:1? Where does your selfish desire to destroy and suppress that orangeness so you can feel better stop?

Why do you need to destroy and suppress orange to be able to justify yourselves being blue?

I'm not sure how gayness being visible translates to destroying straightness. Straightness is everywhere in our culture. The fact that this isn't obvious to you just further illustrates that it is so utterly ubiquitous that people on whom it doesn't have a negative impact don't even consciously recognize it. Visibility is a route to change. Sometimes people can be obnoxious about it, and that's unfortunate, but if gay people just go around hiding their gayness no progress will be made. Culture doesn't change spontaneously.

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What kind of change would be enough for you to stop drawing attention to yourselves?

When our culture is sufficiently accepting of gayness that it doesn't result in people suppressing their sexuality and hating themselves for it, this will go away on its own.

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Honest questions here, not trolling. Same like previous downvoted post.

I don't think you're trolling, I just think your privilege is showing.

If you're a bit puzzled by people who are saying "gays are typically misportrayed as camp...", try watching Diamonds are Forever. It gives you a fairly typical portrayal of gays as seen in the early 70s - and it is rather cringe-worthy today.

People who identify as gay are people. Some choose to shout it from the rooftops (in the manner that the average movie shouts heterosexuality), some choose to just be who they are, in the best way they can. I would hate for people to say "You're being too hetero" for holding my wife's hand in public - so what right do I or anyone else have to tell someone else not to do what comes naturally?

As someone who is gay--and I mean silk scarfs, ass-hugging pants, and basically all my clothes imported from Europe gay--and as someone who has hobbies that tend to be rather unfriendly to gays, like automotive racing and competition shooting, I have to say, I'd never identify as a "gaymer". It's a stupid bastard word and it's needless. Like other people are saying, I'm just a gamer (a hardcore gamer, even). My sexual and romantic inclinations only enter into it as far as interest in the rare games that do allow such things. And despite the fact that I'm pretty obviously gay, even in very "guy" activities, I rarely get much shit for it. I don't understand why there needs to be a support community for gay gamers. I can sort of understand why the Reddit group would want a place where they can discuss such things openly without opposition but don't really appreciate any attempt at distinction regardless. I'm also a furry but you don't see me identifying as a "gaymurr" because it's ridiculous.

On the other hand, being able to register trademarks for nonsense words in common parlance is also bullshit. I wonder if the trademark office would be stupid enough to let me register brony.

It's no more or less a descriptive term than any other term used in the LGBT community.

Gamer is a word describing a person who plays games, and it already marks a subset of people with a common interest.

Gaymer is a (badly) made up word which further divides people with the common interest (gaming) based on their sexual orientation which is grossly stupid and totally unrelated to playing regular computer games. They are excluding themselves by creating such a subset.

I really don't see a big deal here -- I play games online, and as long as I am not playing a game with sexual content and other human players I really don't care about the other player's sexual orientation.

Believe it or not, some people just play games because it's fun, not everyone out there is looking for a spouse or a soulmate while killing zombies or grinding quests.

Moreover, I have yet to see someone asking me about my sexual preferences while playing, much less refusing to play if they don't like the answer.

And gaymer is a subset of gamers that are homosexual. Or do you think that being a gamer segregates you from the rest of humanity?And maybe you're not aware of the flame-wars that tend to erupt on common MMORPG forums about Guild Wars vs WoW. Why do they erupt? Because people have different views on things. And LGBT community has a different view on games as well.

igor.levicki wrote:

Should I now create a group of Serbian gamers and stop playing with the rest of the world because of that?Personally, I don't think so because I would be excluding myself from a lot of good games with normal people, and I also don't think gay people should do that either.

You are aware that regional gaming clubs exist and it's not unusual for them to exclude foreign nationals. And there are Serbian only gamer groups.

igor.levicki wrote:

If anything, they should pay less attention to in-game name calling, because it is not targeted at their sexual orientation regardless of the words being used. Whether someone says "fag", "bitch", "queer", "asshole", "monkey" they always mean the same thing -- you suck at playing.

Then could I use "Serbian mass murderer" to mean "you suck at playing"? I'm sure you will not be offended by that...

So what I take from your post is that LGBTQ community won't settle down and cosider themselves equal until they change the whole world to suit them? Until the proportion of gay .vs. straight is 1:1? Where does your selfish desire to destroy and suppress that orangeness so you can feel better stop?

What kind of change would be enough for you to stop drawing attention to yourselves?

Why do you need to destroy and suppress orange to be able to justify yourselves being blue?

Honest questions here, not trolling. Same like previous downvoted post.

Your whole post is filled with homophobic assumptions. LGBTQ will not settle down until the majority is educated to be tolerant to LGBTQ and allows the same privileges and protections.

Saying "proportion of gay .vs. straight is 1:1" is the stupid idea that is spread by homophobes that think that LGBTQ community is spreading "the gay virus" somehow. Thanks for falling for that.

"your selfish desire to destroy and suppress that orangeness" - What now? Selfish? Being not beaten up and then not ignored by police when you are is not being selfish. Being persecuted for being blue and wanting to stop it, is not being selfish. Suppress? Waving the rainbow flag is not suppression. It is expression. If you don't feel like expressing who you are, does not mean you have to say that it's wrong that others do.Nobody in LGBTQ community is interested in making the world homosexual, unlike a lot of heterosexuals that want the world to be exclusively heterosexual.

It's no more or less a descriptive term than any other term used in the LGBT community.

Isn't it? Let's be a bit inaccurate and say gay means you like men romantically. "Gaymer" means you like men and play videogames. Does that mean there needs to be a word for gay football players and gay men in the army and gay firefighters? There's a point at which labels become ridiculously specific. When merging hobbies (gaming) and sexuality, I think you've hit that point. I appreciate, though wouldn't participate in a community. But the label is dumb.

Is the guy pushing a product or service called 'Gaymer'? If he's not, I really don't like the idea of him having control on the term, much in the same fashion as some of the ridiculous bullying that facebook has become known for with plays off of their name and its derivative words.

I agree, but even if he is pushing a product or service, the use of the term is still questionable, and a bit douchy to co-opt it and then sue for infringement.

But that doesn't seem to be the case; he started his Gaymer website in 2003 long before Reddit existed and registered the name for use in social media in 2007.

Seems this may not be as cut and dried as the article suggests, and frankly speaking, given Ars corporate association with Reddit, should there be a "full disclosure" statement stating this in the article?

Joe Mullen, are you listening? Ars recently criticized Cnet for conflict of interest, and given the subject of this story and how it's portrayed, there could be reasonable speculation of a conflict, so shouldn't you edit the story to state this relationship and add a link to the Gaymer site for balance?

But that doesn't seem to be the case; he started his Gaymer website in 2003 long before Reddit existed and registered the name for use in social media in 2007.

Nobody is saying that he co-opted it from reddit. The argument is that it is a word that has existed in the gaming community since before he started his website. He even admits as much in your link:

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Then I saw the word gaymer being used in-game.

He got the idea for the name from a word that already existed in the community. It doesn't matter that it wasn't reddit he got it from. All that matters is that he didn't make it up himself. If he wanted to trademark "gaymer.org" I'd have no problem with that, but that's not what he did, he trademarked "gaymer," and then tried to stop other people from using it without giving him credit.

It's no more or less a descriptive term than any other term used in the LGBT community.

Isn't it? Let's be a bit inaccurate and say gay means you like men romantically. "Gaymer" means you like men and play videogames. Does that mean there needs to be a word for gay football players and gay men in the army and gay firefighters? There's a point at which labels become ridiculously specific. When merging hobbies (gaming) and sexuality, I think you've hit that point. I appreciate, though wouldn't participate in a community. But the label is dumb.

Words are not "needed", just like the verb google, they tend to pop-up here and there.

If they are talking about gaming, how come their sexual orientation is relevant?

For the reason that if you start a discussion about same sex couples in Sims on regular forums, you are bound to attract a lot of attention from homophobes.

Partially, but no, the main reason isn't a safe place to talk about homosexuality. The main reason is a safe place to talk about gaming. Anybody who's spent any time gaming with the general public (IE on public counterstrike servers, or xbox live, or whatever) knows that homophobic slurs and attitudes are rampant, even if you never bring up sexuality. Of all the pastimes you could pick, multi-player gaming is about the least gay friendly there is - unless you carefully choose your gaming community. Hence gaymers.

If they are talking about gaming, how come their sexual orientation is relevant?

For the reason that if you start a discussion about same sex couples in Sims on regular forums, you are bound to attract a lot of attention from homophobes.

Partially, but no, the main reason isn't a safe place to talk about homosexuality. The main reason is a safe place to talk about gaming. Anybody who's spent any time gaming with the general public (IE on public counterstrike servers, or xbox live, or whatever) knows that homophobic slurs and attitudes are rampant, even if you never bring up sexuality. Of all the pastimes you could pick, multi-player gaming is about the least gay friendly there is - unless you carefully choose your gaming community. Hence gaymers.

Homophobic? Do you actually believe it's targeted at gay players? Do you even think they consider sexual orientation of other players at all? Do you also think that player doing one of "yo mama" insults actually knows or cares who your mother is?

Xbox Live etc. is just a bunch of teenagers insulting each other. It's plain crazy to take these insults serious or personal.

Xbox Live etc. is just a bunch of teenagers insulting each other. It's plain crazy to take these insults serious or personal.

Intellectually you can recognize that idiots will be idiots, and try not to let it bother you.

But we aren't really intellectual creatures, we're emotional. It is hard to feel safe, to feel like you can be yourself in a social setting, when people are using being like you as an insult. Do they know you're gay? Not unless you tell them, but they insult each other by calling each other gay, faggot, homo, etc. What does that say about their attitude towards gays? How would they react if they found out who you really are?

When you have to live your whole life with your guard up, you desperately want to find somewhere you can let your guard down. Unless you've experienced it, it is not likely you'll understand. In other words, your privilege is showing.